Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars

by Lucan

ENDNOTES:

(1) Reading adscenso, as Francken (Leyden, 1896). (2) So: "The rugged Charon fainted, And asked a navy, rather than a boat, To ferry over the sad world that came." (Ben Jonson, "Catiline", Act i., scene 1.) (3) I take "tepido busto" as the dative case; and, as referring to Pompeius, doomed, like Cornelia's former husband, to defeat and death. (4) It may be remarked that, in B.C. 46, Caesar, after the battle of Thapsus, celebrated four triumphs: for his victories over the Gauls, Ptolemaeus, Pharnaces, and Juba. (5) Near Aricia. (See Book VI., 92.) (6) He held no office at the time. (7) The tribune Ateius met Crassus as he was setting out from Rome and denounced him with mysterious and ancient curses. (Plutarch, "Crassus", 16.) (8) That is, the liberty remaining to the people is destroyed by speaking freely to the tyrant. (9) That is, the gold offered by Pyrrhus, and refused by Fabricius, which, after the final defeat of Pyrrhus, came into the possession of the victors. (10) See Plutarch, "Cato", 34, 39. (11) It was generally believed that the river Alpheus of the Peloponnesus passed under the sea and reappeared in the fountain of Arethusa at Syracuse. A goblet was said to have been thrown into the river in Greece, and to have reappeared in the Sicilian fountain. See the note in Grote's "History of Greece", Edition 1863, vol. ii., p. 8.) (12) As a serpent. XXXXX is the Greek word for serpent. (13) Conf. Book VI., 473. (14) The Centaurs. (15) Probably the flute thrown away by Pallas, which Marsyas picked up and then challenged Apollo to a musical contest. For his presumption the god had him flayed alive. (16) That is, the Little Bear, by which the Phoenicians steered, while the Greeks steered by the Great Bear. (See Sir G. Lewis's "Astronomy of the Ancients", p. 447.) In Book VI., line 193, the pilot declares that he steers by the pole star itself, which is much nearer to the Little than to the Great Bear, and is (I believe) reckoned as one of the stars forming the group known by that name. He may have been a Phoenician. (17) He did not in fact reach the Ganges, as is well known. (18) Perhaps in allusion to the embassy from India to Augustus in B.C. 19, when Zarmanochanus, an Indian sage, declaring that he had lived in happiness and would not risk the chance of a reverse, burnt himself publicly. (Merivale, chapter xxxiv.) (19) That is to say, looking towards the west; meaning that they came from the other side of the equator. (See Book IX., 630.) (20) See Book I., 117. (21) A race called Heniochi, said to be descended from the charioteer of Castor and Pollux. (22) "Effusis telis". I have so taken this difficult expression. Herodotus (7, 60) says the men were numbered in ten thousands by being packed close together and having a circle drawn round them. After the first ten thousand had been so measured a fence was put where the circle had been, and the subsequent ten thousands were driven into the enclosure. It is not unlikely that they piled their weapons before being so measured, and Lucan's account would then be made to agree with that of Herodotus. Francken, on the other hand, quotes a Scholiast, who says that each hundredth man shot off an arrow. (23) Agamemnon. (24) Massilia (Marseilles) was founded from Phocaea in Asia Minor about 600 B.C. Lucan (line 393) appears to think that the founders were fugitives from their city when it was stormed by the Persians sixty years later. See Thucydides I. 13; Grote, "History of Greece", chapter xxii. (25) A difficult passage, of which this seems to be the meaning least free from objection. (26) Murviedro of the present day. Its gallant defence against Hannibal has been compared to that of Saragossa against the French. (27) See note to Book I., 506. (28) Three islands off the coast near Toulon, now called the Isles d'Hyeres. (29) This was Decimus Brutus, an able and trusted lieutenant of Caesar, who made him one of his heirs in the second degree. He, however, joined the conspiracy, and it was he who on the day of the murder induced Caesar to go to the Senate House. Less than two years later, after the siege of Perasia, he was deserted by his army, taken and put to death. (30) According to some these were the lines which Lucan recited while bleeding to death; according to others, those at Book ix., line 952. (31) It was regarded as the greatest of misfortunes if a child died before his parent. (32) It was Brutus who gained the naval victory over the Veneti some seven years before; the first naval fight, that we know of, fought in the Atlantic Ocean.

BOOK IV

CAESAR IN SPAIN. WAR IN THE ADRIATIC SEA. DEATH OF CURIO.

But in the distant regions of the earth
Fierce Caesar warring, though in fight he dealt
No baneful slaughter, hastened on the doom
To swift fulfillment. There on Magnus' side
Afranius and Petreius (1) held command,
Who ruled alternate, and the rampart guard
Obeyed the standard of each chief in turn.
There with the Romans in the camp were joined
Asturians (2) swift, and Vettons lightly armed,
And Celts who, exiled from their ancient home,
Had joined "Iberus" to their former name.
Where the rich soil in gentle slope ascends
And forms a modest hill, Ilerda (3) stands,
Founded in ancient days; beside her glides
Not least of western rivers, Sicoris
Of placid current, by a mighty arch
Of stone o'erspanned, which not the winter floods
Shall overwhelm. Upon a rock hard by
Was Magnus' camp; but Caesar's on a hill,
Rivalling the first; and in the midst a stream.
Here boundless plains are spread beyond the range
Of human vision; Cinga girds them in
With greedy waves; forbidden to contend
With tides of ocean; for that larger flood
Who names the land, Iberus, sweeps along
The lesser stream commingled with his own.

Guiltless of war, the first day saw the hosts
In long array confronted; standard rose
Opposing standard, numberless; yet none
Essayed attack, in shame of impious strife.
One day they gave their country and her laws.
But Caesar, when from heaven fell the night,
Drew round a hasty trench; his foremost rank
With close array concealing those who wrought.
Then with the morn he bids them seize the hill
Which parted from the camp Ilerda's walls,
And gave them safety. But in fear and shame
On rushed the foe and seized the vantage ground,
First in the onset. From the height they held
Their hopes of conquest; but to Caesar's men
Their hearts by courage stirred, and their good swords
Promised the victory. Burdened up the ridge
The soldier climbed, and from the opposing steep
But for his comrade's shield had fallen back;
None had the space to hurl the quivering lance
Upon the foeman: spear and pike made sure
The failing foothold, and the falchion's edge
Hewed out their upward path. But Caesar saw
Ruin impending, and he bade his horse
By circuit to the left, with shielded flank,
Hold back the foe. Thus gained his troops retreat,
For none pressed on them; and the victor chiefs,
Forced to withdrawal, gained the day in vain.

Henceforth the fitful changes of the year
Governed the fates and fashioned out the war.
For stubborn frost still lay upon the land,
And northern winds, controlling all the sky,
Prisoned the rain in clouds; the hills were nipped
With snow unmelted, and the lower plains
By frosts that fled before the rising sun;
And all the lands that stretched towards the sky
Which whelms the sinking stars, 'neath wintry heavens
Were parched and arid. But when Titan neared
The Ram, who, backward gazing on the stars,
Bore perished Helle, (4) and the hours were held
In juster balance, and the day prevailed,
The earliest faded moon which in the vault
Hung with uncertain horn, from eastern winds
Received a fiery radiance; whose blasts
Forced Boreas back: and breaking on the mists
Within his regions, to the Occident
Drave all that shroud Arabia and the land
Of Ganges; all that or by Caurus (5) borne
Bedim the Orient sky, or rising suns
Permit to gather; pitiless flamed the day
Behind them, while in front the wide expanse
Was driven; nor on mid earth sank the clouds
Though weighed with vapour. North and south alike
Were showerless, for on Calpe's rock alone
All moisture gathered; here at last, forbidden
To pass that sea by Zephyr's bounds contained,
And by the furthest belt (6) of heaven, they pause,
In masses huge convolved; the widest breadth
Of murky air scarce holds them, which divides
Earth from the heavens; till pressed by weight of sky
In densest volume to the earth they pour
Their cataracts; no lightning could endure
Such storm unquenched: though oft athwart the gloom
Gleamed its pale fire. Meanwhile a watery arch
Scarce touched with colour, in imperfect shape
Embraced the sky and drank the ocean waves,
So rendering to the clouds their flood outpoured.

And now were thawed the Pyrenaean snows
Which Titan had not conquered; all the rocks
Were wet with melting ice; accustomed springs
Found not discharge; and from the very banks
Each stream received a torrent. Caesar's arms
Are shipwrecked on the field, his tottering camp
Swims on the rising flood; the trench is filled
With whirling waters; and the plain no more
Yields corn or kine; for those who forage seek,
Err from the hidden furrow. Famine knocks
(First herald of o'erwhelming ills to come),
Fierce at the door; and while no foe blockades
The soldier hungers; fortunes buy not now
The meanest measure; yet, alas! is found
The fasting peasant, who, in gain of gold,
Will sell his little all! And now the hills
Are seen no more; and rivers whelmed in one;
Beasts with their homes sweep downwards; and the tide
Repels the foaming torrent. Nor did night
Acknowledge Phoebus' rise, for all the sky
Felt her dominion and obscured its face,
And darkness joined with darkness. Thus doth lie
The lowest earth beneath the snowy zone
And never-ending winters, where the sky
Is starless ever, and no growth of herb
Sprouts from the frozen earth; but standing ice
Tempers (7) the stars which in the middle zone
Kindle their flames. Thus, Father of the world,
And thou, trident-god who rul'st the sea
Second in place, Neptunus, load the air
With clouds continual; forbid the tide,
Once risen, to return: forced by thy waves
Let rivers backward run in different course,
Thy shores no longer reaching; and the earth,
Shaken, make way for floods. Let Rhine o'erflow
And Rhone their banks; let torrents spread afield
Unmeasured waters: melt Rhipaean snows:
Spread lakes upon the land, and seas profound,
And snatch the groaning world from civil war.

Thus for a little moment Fortune tried
Her darling son; then smiling to his part
Returned; and gained her pardon for the past
By greater gifts to come. For now the air
Had grown more clear, and Phoebus' warmer rays
Coped with the flood and scattered all the clouds
In fleecy masses; and the reddening east
Proclaimed the coming day; the land resumed
Its ancient marks; no more in middle air
The moisture hung, but from about the stars
Sank to the depths; the forest glad upreared
Its foliage; hills again emerged to view
And 'neath the warmth of day the plains grew firm.

When Sicoris kept his banks, the shallop light
Of hoary willow bark they build, which bent
On hides of oxen, bore the weight of man
And swam the torrent. Thus on sluggish Po
Venetians float; and on th' encircling sea (8)
Are borne Britannia's nations; and when Nile
Fills all the land, are Memphis' thirsty reeds
Shaped into fragile boats that swim his waves.
The further bank thus gained, they haste to curve
The fallen forest, and to form the arch
By which imperious Sicoris shall be spanned.
Yet fearing he might rise in wrath anew,
Not on the nearest marge they placed the beams,
But in mid-field. Thus the presumptuous stream
They tame with chastisement, parting his flood
In devious channels out; and curb his pride.